


Promotion (Side A)

by GoldsweptSilk (NevillesGran)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Biting, Gen, Graphic Violence More Heavily Implied than Shown, Memory lapse, Mind Control, Rewrite of Canon Scene, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 21:08:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20316034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/GoldsweptSilk
Summary: [SOUNDS OF BRUTALPIPEVAMPIRE MURDER]





	Promotion (Side A)

**Author's Note:**

> “A” for Archivist, Aging Asshole librarian, and (lack of) Agency.

Jon would remember it eventually—weeks, months, later. In slivers and slices. For once, he was certain the lapse was due to nothing but trauma. Walking out of his office, yes, into the dark Archives; adrenaline still racing from the chase with that...thing that wasn’t Sasha; mind racing much faster with everything Leitner had said. Leitner, _ Jurgen fucking Leitner_, monster of so many nightmares—

Maybe he saw Elias on the stairs, maybe he didn’t?

The steel grip on the nape of his neck. The glint of fangs and the _ need _ it brought out of him, tilting his head back without thought ( _ You belong to it, too._) Elias’s amusement, warm and fond and spiked with malicious anticipation; Jon gasped as it swept over him, so distantly heard the, “Yes, I think it’s time.”

Pain in his throat; broken skin beneath his lips spilling thick, coppery, dizzying blood—unless that was later. A snap in his neck.

…

Jurgen sat alone in the new Archivist’s office. It was the same as the old Archivist’s, mostly, though much neater. Gertrude has always kept the place full of clutter, and he’d never determined whether it was an act, obfuscation, or genuine natural habit. She certainly knew where everything was.

“I’m not sure you would have liked him, you know,” he said to his absent friend. “He’s paranoid enough. But I don’t think he’s got the stomach for it.”

That, of course, and the fact that Sims was clearly deeply and utterly enthralled to Bouchard, for all that his free will seemed to have been left intact. _ What _ game—

The door opened.

“Well,” said Elias Bouchard, for speak of the Devil and he shall appear. “This _ is _ a surprise.”

He held up one hand. “Reach for the book and I _ will _ kill you.”

Jurgen was on his feet, one hand hovering over his spellbook on the desk—but it was too late, really. The split second in which he hadn’t seized it already, in which he’d assumed it was just Sims returning, had already killed him.

He sat.

“How much have you told him?” the vampire asked—clipped but almost casual, as though this was a business meeting. 

He didn’t look like a vampire, of course. Few did, if they could avoid it. He didn’t look like he could move across the room and tear out a man’s throat out before the man himself could blink. He didn’t act as though the pressure of his Sight was...not, surprisingly, forcing itself against Jurgen’s meticulously maintained wards like the maelstrom he would expect. It was there, digging quietly into the walls, but something else was holding the bulk of the monster’s attention.

“Enough,” Jurgen said warily.

“About Gertrude?”

“No– no, I didn’t have time.”

“I’ve wondered for so long who it could be down there. Who was helping her.” Bouchard sounded almost impressed—and, despite not moving, gave the clear impression of a hunting cat circling its prey. “I honestly never would have guessed.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “You’re very well-hidden. But Jon is not, and he failed to take the same precautions I’m sure you took for granted with Gertrude. I knew he was talking to someone. And it turns out to be Jurgen Leitner himself.” He chuckled. “What an honour.”

Jurgen spread his empty hands, tilted his head back in a vampire’s surrender. “Elias, _ please_.” 

(It wouldn’t help, he knew it wouldn’t. But he’d never met a vampire who didn’t like their ego stroked, and he was too old and tired for pride but not so tired as to give up on survival entirely.)

“What do you want from him?” Bouchard demanded.

“The files. The ones you took from Gertrude.” Though, god, he _ was _ tired.

“Planning a little light arson, are we, Jurgen?” 

“It’s not just the Institute and you know it. They had everything she’d found on the Strangers.”

“I know. It's, um...what do they call it?”

“The Unknowing.” A dark ritual combining the blood power of the vampires with the ancient secrets of human mages—aptly titled, because Jurgen knew barely anything else of it, though he had spent his entire life researching dark magic. But even he had avoided workings as great as what the Strangers’ faction sought to wreak upon the world. 

Bouchard gave a breath of a laugh. “Creativity never was their forte.”

Jurgen Leitner may not have traveled within the rivalrous factions of the London undead, but he knew them. “You of all people should want to stop them!” 

“And we will. But I don’t think we’ll need _ your _ help.”

He bared his fangs in a mockery of a smile and beckoned at the door—and then Sims returned. But he was no longer the man with whom Jurgen had been speaking. No longer a man at all. He moved in jerks of supernatural grace, an unearthly predator restrained by great force. His throat was a mess of blood, his eyes red and bright and _ hungry_. They locked on Jurgen with a power dizzying even through the strength of his wards.

Jurgen understood, now, what held so much of Bouchard’s focus. It was no easy thing to control the force of raw instinct and power that was a just-turned vampire, even for the new monster’s sire.

As perhaps always, Jurgen’s refuge from terror was curiosity. “How is this possible? The transformation usually takes—”

“Oh, I’ve been overfeeding Jon for months. I barely had to do more than kill him, at this point. Insurance, you understand, in case someone else beat me to it. It would be so much trouble to find another candidate as well-suited to being my heir.” Bouchard cupped Sims’ cheek briefly, with pride somewhere between that of a father and of a pet-owner. “It’s driven him somewhat mad, and certainly contributed to some of his less advisable decisions tonight. But I think it’s working out.”

Sims didn’t seem to register the touch. His bright stare remained pinned on the nearest source of human blood.

Bouchard stepped out of the way.

“Your _ heir_?” Jurgen was genuinely aghast. “He barely knows anything. He’ll be destroyed.”

“It’s always a danger.”

“Elias,” he tried again, baring his neck. “It doesn’t have to be like—”

The monster previously known as Jonathan Sims lunged too fast to see.

…

Jon would remember, immediately and forever, waking up in his office with the scent of blood filling his lungs, the stinging-sweet taste of it on his lips. His first thought was to seek more, even though he was comfortably full, with what he instinctively knew was a whole life. Jurgen Leitner lay drained and partially dismembered in his lap. Before he thought better, Jon wiped a last few drops of blood from the man’s torn throat and licked them off his fingers. They were starting to go cold. The drops of blood. And his fingers. He could hear, suddenly, the terrible absence of his own pulse.

Oh.

He ran his tongue over over his teeth and found fangs, without much surprise.

He– he wasn’t sure what to do, now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and concrit always welcome. Don’t miss the remix in [“Promotion (Side B)”](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/The_Magnusquerade/works/20316058) by Listless_Songbird!


End file.
